reading

I have been trying to catch up on my reading. I belong to Goodreads and joined the 2011 reading challenge. I challenged myself to read 52 books this year. Fifty two books which I will admit to reading.

I finished one tonight, Watch Your Mouth by Daniel Handler. I have had this book since 2002. I am also trying to read the physical books before I buy anymore eBooks. I really enjoyed Handler's other books, the ones he wrote as Lemony Snicket. But Watch Your Mouth left me confused and perplexed. I just didn't see the humor. I did not enjoy it.

14 september 2011

1. Happy Birthday Arlyn!

2. Andy went bowling today for special Olympics. This is the first event of the school year. Most of his class went to a local bowling alley, play two games, eat lunch, and go back to school. In the past, it has been crazy and chaotic as there are loads of schools coming and going. This year, things seemed less crowded and ran more smoothly. Andy had only one other boy in his lane so the games did not drag on. And once we learned that Andy needed 30 points in each game to qualify for the next round, he had incentivtive to do well. Andy finished with 44 points in the first game, and 57 points in the second game. We were done before noon. Andy got a second place ribbon.

The one part that did not get better was the food line. The small grill can not handle all of the kids. It was taking 20-30 minutes to get a personal pizza. Andy did not want to eat at the bowling alley. He wanted to go to Chick-Fil-A. We stopped at the produce stand on the way.

03 september 2011

The boys had colds earlier in the week. They successfully got over them by giving them to me. Thursday was a icky throat, Friday was coughing. I am still coughing today and will probably sleep in the chair tonight.

I drove the boys to school Monday through Thursday. The bus showed up Friday morning at 7:55. They even made it to school on time.

I spent my week playing with Lego for my photo of the day. I also did more uncluttering. I took a few boxes to Goodwill and have started more. I like the accountability of the online workshop but realized that I don't need to spend money I don't have and can do this on my own.

I have also been working through 2009 photos. With the larger hard drives, this isn't as urgent but it is a good habit to purge those photos I will never use.

The boys got haircuts on Wednesday. Andy picked out One Fish Two Fish. Ryan brought 2 books. I checked the prices on amazon and told him he could only get one book. He would get the other book for his birthday. He was OK with that and put one book back.

I waited for the boys and Ryan came with a third book. "I just found this!" I could see it was a Peanuts book. One that I had preordered and was sitting at home. That series is much cheaper through amazon. I told him to put it back that he could wait until his birthday. He went back muttering that he could not wait.

When he came back, I told him he could choose which book he got today. He picked the Peanuts book and was OK to wait until he got home. Then in the car, he went to pick up the book he had chosen first. He thought he could "preview" it. But I told him he had to have patience and wait.

When we got home, he had forgotten about it until I was telling poppa about it. Then he went looking for the package. He was happy and spent the rest of the evening in his room giggling.

I had lunch with Doyle yesterday at Tijuana Flats. I love Mexican food.

Andy finally started eating again. He ate 4 full bagels for breakfast this morning.

26 august 2011

This week went by quickly. I only got done about half of what I wanted to do. I never even touched Andy's computer to upgrade the OS. He doesn't seem to mind.

I ended up driving the boys to school every morning. The bus driver was so late. On Wednesday afternoon, she asked if the boys were riding the bus. I explained that if she was later than 8 am, that I would be driving them. So she doesn't even need to come into in the village if she is that late.

Ryan had his schedule changed twice. He is now in advanced math. He says math is his favorite class.

Andy has the same classes, PE and art. No art until they work out the schedule.

I stopped at Starbuck's each day for breakfast. It was a big indulgence so I felt I should stay home for lunch. I did make it out a couple times, once to Panera, and once to Five Guys.

Savi came over and helped me move the shelves in the office. I cleared one off for her. I need to organize paper packs and such for a garage sale.

I got a haircut on Wednesday. I needed it. The boys were supposed to go tomorrow but it was change to next week. Andy is excited that I will pick him up from school.

I participated in the Big Idea Festival. Each day was another prompt for a 6x6 page. I made mine all similar. I am not sure about making it into a mini book or printing out the pages. Now I can get back to Design Your Life class.

I am also working on Quick & Simple Clutter Control. But sometimes I forget to check in for the daily challenge. I need to make this a routine but I am super lazy.

The Lego minifigures Series 5 are out. I went to Toys R Us today and found a box of them. I felt through the packages and hope I got all 16. I did place an order from Lego on Wednesday so I will have some repeats.

I started reading Street Gang. It is full of tedium about children's television programming.

Other than the POTD, I did no photography. Doyle cancelled on me twice. I should set up a photo walk for next week but the weather is still kind of hot and it is a holiday weekend.

day 81

Sunday.

The LAST day of summer break. We made it through 81 days without a major breakdown. I will miss sleeping in to 6:30 and Ryan "waking me up" with a kiss. I won't miss feeling guilty leaving the house without the boys.

Last night I put in one of the yankz in my sneakers. I am trying it out before I put in the second one.

I had hoped the backup would have completed overnight. But I forgot about the computer going to sleep at 11. It started again this morning. It should be done by lunch.

My iPad hung again during the backup. I force quit and deleted the backup. It took awhile but I got it backed up again. I have been using zinio more. I wonder if that has a connection.

Breakfast: waffles.

POTD prompt was favorite fruit. I gave only apples and bananas. Easy set up.

Lunch: panini, vanilla cone.

All backups done and scheduled. It was easy enough to redirect Lightroom to the new drive.

Ryan got his stuff ready for school. He was disappointed that I only had 5 colors of folders and he has 6 classes. I forgot that we had to go look for a purple folder last year.

I ordered another hard drive for me and one for dad. I need a larger drive for Time Machine. What I have is only 500gb and I have to restart it every few months.

Layout for Words to Live By. I skipped the journaling. I didn't want to cover up any of the photo and I think it is not needed.

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Card of the day. I really like how this turned out.

I finished watching two television series recommended by Doyle, Breaking In and Mr Sunshine. Breaking In had been cancelled. I don't know about Mr Sunshine.

Dinner: salad, kiwi

I watched an episode of Dr Who. Then I watch the first episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. I doubt I will watch Curb again. George was my least favorite character on Seinfeld and Curb is like a whole show about George.

Shaved Andy's face. I am not very good at it. I go too fast. But at least I don't nick him.

Andy thinks I should go to bed early since he has to. He is probably right. I wrote in my gratitude journal early.

Thus ends my daily posts. I will go back to posting every third day or so. When there is something to actually post about.

day 80

Saturday.

Still plugging away at the new EHD configuration. Another plus for drobo is the need for ONE outlet. There is spaghetti monster under my desk.

Breakfast. eggs, peach

POTD prompt was favorite animal. I used the Mill Raid set today.

Andy has the calendars synced on his iPod. I set it up so only the boys and family calendars would show. Andy goes in and shows all calendars. So he saw Bike Night and asked me about it. Bike Night runs from 5-9 so he assumed I would bed time. I told him I would be home in time.

Wiregrass Fresh Market. Got some cucumbers & tomatoes. The egg lady was not there. The best part was going to Starbucks for lunch; mozzarella & tomato panini, iced soy chai.

I got dad a new dictionary. He has been reading all morning. But he hasn't read any entries yet, he is just reading how to use the dictionary. I never knew anyone read that stuff.

Card of the day.

I went through some of my kits and got rid of elements I will never use.

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Layout for Words To Live By.

The Snow Leopard disk came. I went to upgrade Andy's computer and it failed. I ran disk warrior. The install failed again. Ryan reminded me that this happened when I tried to upgrade to Leopard last time. I had forgotten about that. I gave up for now.

I checked online for the install issue. Others had the same problem and seem to have fixed it by replacing the original ram. I did upgrade the ram so I will try that next week when Andy is in school.

I tried the Halo Honey Graham. It was gross and will NOT try it again.

I didn't go to Bike Night but I did go out. I stopped at Starbucks for a panini and iced soy chai. Then I went to Toys R Us in hopes of finding some Series 5 minifigures. I didn't find any and decided to try Target. No minifigures there either but I got an umbrella for Ryan, some Pooh books for Andy and chocolate for me.

day 79

Friday.

I wish I had a drobo. I have several external hard drives. My photos and music are on them. I had a 2Tb drive partitioned for my photos and music. I am running out of room for my photos. My music still has plenty of space. I got two new 1Tb drives so I could move my music over to them then let the photos expand into the entire 2Tb drives. The problem comes in with having to copy everything over. It takes hours. With a drobo, I could just exchange the smaller drive for a larger drive and drobo would do the rest. Someday.

Breakfast: eggs, peach

POTD prompt was favorite dessert.

Words to Live By.

Time Machine is cool. I had purged many of my supplies. But I had not completed the layout and needed that kit. I went into Time Machine, found the folder and restored it. Yay!

I had planned on going out to Shannon's. But I got delayed trying to finish that layout. It was 1:30 before I made lunch. I quit Photoshop because it was so slow and ate.

I was thinking about paying for an organization workshop. Then I think I spend the money on ram for my computer. It is so slow!

Lunch: grilled cheese, carrots.

I finished the layout that I started back in June.

Card of the day using new Crystal Wilkerson papers. Yummy!

Halo Bar Nutty Marshmallow. This wasn't too bad.

Dinner: popcorn.

My sweet tooth showed up. I ate three EL Fudge cookies before I remembered my caramel nips. They are doing a better job at quelling the cravings.

day 78

Thursday.

Breakfast: eggs, peach

POTD prompt was favorite flower. Pretty easy build. 

Last day at the pool. I won't missing sitting in the heat.

Lunch at Chick Fil A

We went to Publix to get juice. Andy drinks a lot more when he is at home.

I was dozing in the chair. Andy would talk to me and I would answer. Yes, I can talk to him in my sleep. Then dad came to me with some spreadsheets of his filing conventions for the photos. I told him to go away. "But I thought you were awake. You talked to Andy." And yet my eyes were closed. Sigh.

Layout for Words to Live By.

Jen Allyson came out with a new kit. I love the papers and had to get it. I have been pretty good about not buying everything I like.

I tried the Halo S'mores Bar. Yuck. Though they do keep me from getting hungry, they aren't really an enjoyable snack.

Dinner: tuna with roasted red pepper vinaigrette. Not bad.

Card of the day.

day 77

Wednesday

Breakfast: eggs, peach

POTD prompt was favorite piece of technology. This was pretty easy using my Lego pieces.

Wednesday Adventure Club: Ryan picked to go back to the Glazer Children's Museum. Today's visit was much more fun and relaxed. Ryan led the way to some of the exhibits he did not visit last time. Andy loved being on screen as a weatherman. Ryan thought it was fun to move the cameras around to view the different areas of the museum.

Ryan did spend a lot of time in the water droplet area climbing around. I think they have added some stabilizing cables as it didn't seem to sway this time.

I cracked up when Ryan came out into the theatre wearing a green robe. Who knew he would want to dress up like that?

We went to the other end of the museum to the Fire Station. There is a pole which kids can slide down but it was closed. Ryan climbed into the fire truck and watched the video for quite a while.

There were several school and camp groups so we were ready to leave.

We went to McDonalds, Starbucks and Chick Fil A for lunch then home.

Snack: chai and rocky road Halo Bar. The almond milk I got is nuttier than the last one I bought. I am not sure I like it. The Halo Bar is one step about a protein bar. But much better than a cookie in that I don't want twenty more.

I edited the photos from today and made a layout. Then I made another layout for Big Idea Festival.

Dinner: salad, melon

Card of the day.

day 76

 

Tuesday.

Breakfast: eggs, peach

Ryan said he didn't know where to go for Wednesday Adventure Club. I pulled up the list of choices as tabs in my browser. He began eliminating tabs until he was down to Glazer Children's Museum and Ybor Museum. He chose the Glazer Children's Museum again. At least we have the passes so I only need to pay for parking and lunch.

POTD prompt is favorite writing. At one time I used to own a couple Lego pens. But they were chewed up by Andy and I threw them away. Ryan followed me and wanted to help. But he kept goofing around and I had to dismiss him.

School registration today. In elementary school, it s called Meet the Teacher Day. Andy still calls it that and expects to see his teacher.

Ryan chose to go at 11:00 thinking it would be less crowded. It wasn't bad. It still took an hour to complete the forms and wait in several lines. Ryan got all new teachers though his schedule may change because he was not enrolled in advanced math. Ryan chose not to see his classrooms. Most are in one building, in a regular classroom building. Andy wanted to see his teacher even though he has the same one. His classroom moved to the one he had in 6th grade. I think he was a little disappointed.

We went to lunch.

Chiropractor. Dr. Komsky was there instead of Dr. Burns.

I stopped at Nutrition Smart. This one had the Halo Bars. I got one of each to try. They are small like protein bars. I got more almond milk. The unsweetened is fine with the chai.

I stopped at Target for important things like Chai tea concentrate and dark chocolate.

Card of the day.

I made another layout for Words to Live By. Today's word was wonder. Since this is going to be all 6x6 layouts, I decided to try blending my background images.

I forgot about dinner until later. I planned one just crackers and hummus until I found the hummus to be moldy. Damn! The problem with eating fresher ingredients is that it doesn't last long. I had some Justin's Honey Peanut Butter. I dislike having to stir the peanut butter.